Clean

Carpets vacuumed, slate swept, shower scrubber-bubbled. Bathroom vanity and mirror windex'd, toilet sanitized, clothes washed and dried. Garbage disposed of, recyclables set for recycling, piles built up on couch placed back where they belong. My apartment is now ready for co-occupation! I should have guests over more often -- it's nice living in a clean space. 8) [My grandparents are visiting for the weekend, in case anyone was curious.]

I bought two designer lamps from the home decor store when I moved in in August. They look like halogen torchiere lamps but they use flourescent bulbs instead. It's only been 6 months but the one bulb is already going out. Seems like a pretty short life span. Hrm.

This week I've been experimenting with going to work early and heading back home early. The experiment has been a success, in that I've gathered enough data to draw a conclusion with some confidence. My conclusion: it's better to come in later and stay later. Sure, it's easier for me to wake up at 9:00am than 7:00am. 8) But, more importantly, I work closely with several other people, and it's much more productive if my schedule coincides mostly with their schedules. It's a pain if they block waiting for me because I've already left for the day, at 8pm. And, I feel guilty by leaving at 8pm while others are more or less in the thick of their work. Nevermind that I may have been at work 2 or 3 hours before they showed up -- that's, like 10 hours ago, so it looks like I'm skipping out just when work is getting done.

So, my plan is to return to a more late-night schedule. Probably not nearly as many 11:30pm and midnight nights. But, more 10 and 11pm nights. This all said, I should also emphasize that many people do head out around 8pm, or even 6pm, and are perfectly well off. These people show up at 8am or so, so they've put in many productive hours. A weakness of my experiment was that my "early mornings" were 9:30am mornings -- a much better time would have been 7:30am. I plan to repeat my experiment in June or so, when it should be easier to wake up early enough to get to work by 7:30am if I want (it's hard to wake up at 6am when it's still dark and 51F outside).